Now, here's something interesting. When I'm logging into the server using nxserver, with foo's credentials, not only does gnome not work (all I get is the wallpaper and nothing else) I'm unable to use "su - foo" .

Otherwise it does.

Issues with tty/pts?_________________Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one. -- Bruce Lee

Changing the limit on number of processes in /etc/security/limits.conf, made the problem go away. Weird.

I recall "emerge -Duv xorg-server" pulled in some dependencies that required pam.

Do you recall the old value? What was it, and how much did you have to increase it?_________________Here's another unfortunate pack of mutants who ought to be penciled in for a sudden visit from the angel of death.
-- Carlin

If you want to just be done with it, you should be fine. But you could probably set processes to 100 - 200 and still be fine. But you might have to keep that in mind if you encountered the problem again. I think I've seen db systems with a lot of activity have lower max file limits.

One option might be to look at some security / hardening docs / tools to see if they recommend anything._________________Here's another unfortunate pack of mutants who ought to be penciled in for a sudden visit from the angel of death.
-- Carlin

I don't want to troubleshoot anymore, because I don't know what's going on and don't know where to look. I'll get back to this problem later._________________Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one. -- Bruce Lee

This random website has some info. I'd forgotten how the soft / hard limits work, so that'd be a good place to start. "low" soft limit, then manually increase it to find out the usable low end._________________Here's another unfortunate pack of mutants who ought to be penciled in for a sudden visit from the angel of death.
-- Carlin